Tag Archives: Consumer Product Safety Commission

Dec 17 2008

CPSC Recalls Toy Dinosaurs for Lead Paint

As I’ve mentioned before, I am on the toy recall email list for the Consumer Products Safety Commission. This evening I got an alert about a recall for toy dinosaurs, something I am VERY familiar with as I am sure many parents with boys are (not that girls don’t like them too….). The dinosaurs have been voluntarily been recalled because paint on the toy dinosaurs can contain excessive levels of lead.
The dinosaurs were sold through Xtreme Toy Zone’s web site between May and October of this year. They are battery operated and they move and make sounds.  The recall includes the models shown below.  If you purchased a dinosaur from Xtreme Toy Zone you will want to check the battery cover for the model number.  If yours is part of the recall you should take it away immediately and contact the company for a refund.
More information is available on the CPSC web site, here.

Dinosaurs 1 Dinosaurs 2

Nov 14 2008

Toy Recalls this Holiday Season

With the holidays fast approaching and my shopping efforts about to head into high gear I’ve been thinking a lot about the issues we all had with product recalls last year. Outside of dreading the trip to the mall (I am a terrible online shopper) one of the things I have not been looking forward to is cross checking the boys’ wish list with the Consumer Product Safety Commissions list of recalled/dangerous toys.  Well imagine my glee when I read that toy recalls (a major bummer last year) were down 46% from last year in the Washington Post.  

The toy recall numbers for 2008 were released during a press conference held by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on Wednesday. During the press conference the CPSC said the number of toy recalls had dropped to 74 in 2008 from 138 in 2007. Additionally, the number of recalls involving toys containing lead has gone down to 45 compared to 97 last year.

I am sure you’ll agree that this is great news but I hope that they will remain aggressive and that this number will zero out soon.

The CPSC attributes the drop to their increased surveillance which includes more inspections, stronger voluntary safety standards and efforts of toy makers to keep dangerous toys off the shelves.

While this is great news I personally and still sad that the number is still as high as it is. While I recognize that there are thousands of toy makers out there, and that the CPSC has a tough job, the bright-eyed optimist in me still wishes they could get that number down to zero.

One bright bit of news is that the new safety standards take affect in February of next year! These new requirements will force manufacturers to test all toys and get them certified as safe by an outside party.

To stay up-to-date on the efforts of the CPSC I highly recommend signing up for their email alerts.  They are great at getting important safety information out right away.

Several stores like Toys R Us and Wal-Mart  and manufacturers like Mattel and Hasbro also provide information on toy recalls on their web sites